Science in a Box

Science in a Box

Robots and telescience aren't the entire future of space
science - lots of hands- on work remains to be done, as the astronauts aboard
MSL-1 have been showing with
experiments in the Middeck Glovebox. "It's a useful device, to have
a work station where you can run many different kinds of experiments, where
the crew can do hands-on work, where you can make changes on the fly,"
said project scientist Don Reiss
of NASA Marshall's Space Sciences Laboratory. (At left,
the Internal Flows in a Free Drop Experiment gets underway in the Middeck
Glovebox on Flight Day 3 of MSL-1.)

To many people, gloveboxes are what medical researchers use to separate
themselves from deadly viruses. The former Lunar Receiving Laboratory at
Johnson Space Center had several gloveboxes to isolate Earth from possible
germs in moon rocks - and to protect the rocks from earthly contamination.
But gloveboxes come in many sizes and shapes, and levels of containment.

The Middeck Glovebox, or MGBX, on board MSL-1 is not as tightly sealed
as a virus research glovebox. The MGBX is designed to keep particles from
floating out of experiments and into the module where the astronauts might
breath them since, in weightlessness, dust and aerosols don't fall to the
floor. The first level of protection is sealable doors and gloves which
seal the work area off from the crew cabin. Another level is provided by
a fan which draws air from the work area through two banks of filters that
trap particles, droplets, and gases, preventing them from entering the crew
cabin. Other levels include sleeves that close around the operator's wrists,
or true gloves that completely isolate skin on the outside from test samples
on the inside.

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Using the MGBX means getting up close and personal with
the experiments. At left, Cady Coleman (mission specialist on USML-2) trains
with an early model on board the DC-9 low-g aircraft. At right, top, Don
Thomas conducts an experiment on MSL-1, Flight Day 1. At right, below, Don Thomas does some "hands-on"
science using the glovebox on July 11.

One reason for building the MGBX, Reiss said, is to provide a way for
scientists to design and build low-cost experiments and get them flown quickly.
The Spacelab glovebox design was developed by the European Space Agency
and suggested to NASA in 1989. Reiss, Roger
Kroes, and Barbara
Facemire of SSL developed an initial list of experiments to illustrate
how the glovebox might be used.

As a result, NASA and the investigators for the first U.S. Microgravity
Laboratory (USML-1) added the glovebox to the USML-1 mission. From the time
the investigations were selected until flight took about 18 months and often
cost less than $50,000.

Reiss said that he and Kroes developed a crystal nucleation experiment
for about $46,000. Since then, this MGBX has flown on the Shuttle several
times, and a second unit has been installed aboard Russia's Mir space station.

Fiber-supported droplet combustion (FSDC) is carried out
inside a small box mounted inside the Middeck Glovebox.

In exchange for the low cost of developing experiments, scientists face
other challenges.

"You're working in pretty cramped quarters," Reiss said of
the space inside the glovebox, "so it requires some manual dexterity."

As he spoke, an interviewer carefully maneuvered a mockup of the CHT
experiment (pictured below) into a training model (complete with
English and Russian labels) of the glovebox. The experiment itself was the
size of a school kid's lunchbox, and had thick plastic panels on each side
so video cameras can watch the flow of alcohol in glass tubes.

The experiment is meant to help scientists understand why this promising
method of cooling spacecraft equipment will often lock up and stop moving
heat. A box with banks of light emitting diodes (LEDs) displays temperatures
and other conditions in the experiment.

This also displays the low-cost philosophy of the MGBX. While the data
could be downlinked through the Spacelab data system, it is less expensive
to put one of the HiPac cameras on the display.

Looks can be deceiving. The closeup image (left) of the
capillary heat transfer experiment is taken by a TV camera mounted on the
window atop the MGBX which makes it appear larger than life. The experiment
hardware (right) is a little larger than a school kid's lunchbox.

"It requires a lot of ingenuity and design work by the principal
investigators," Reiss said. It also allows the use of the most valuable
of orbital research tools: the astronauts' hands and eyes. "This is
what it was designed for," Reiss said. "It takes full advantage
of the capabilities of the crew."

As the astronauts run the experiments, investigators can watch on the
ground and redirect their activities. "These experiments are so crew
intensive that it's like normal ground-based lab activities where the scientist
goes in and works the hardware himself," Reiss said.

Two separate sets of MSL-1 experiments on flows inside droplets (to understand
why air bubbles sometimes stick inside, and how sound might be used to clean
up samples before growing crystals) "have required a lot of skill by
the astronauts to get these droplets deployed properly," Reiss said.
"Sometimes they fly off. Getting them captured and stabilized is not
a trivial thing."